26

be particularly severe if inputs are "lumpy" (tractors, tube wells)

and only the larger farmers can afford them or use them efficiently,

or if the total demand for the crop in question is inelastic. In

such a situation, when the early adopters of improved technology

produce more, the price will drop; the late adopters will get no

benefits, and the non-adopter may be hurt by lower prices.

 If, however, inputs are divisible (fertilizer, seed) and demand

for the commodity is very high and if prices will not be depressed by increased

production, the late adopters (who generally are smaller farmers)

canget some benefits from the new technology. Indeed the smaller

farmers are likely to get most of the benefits if the innovation

requires high labor inputs per land area.. Such farmers may quickly adopt

labor intensive cash crops, vegetable cultivation, animal husbandry,

or dairy, if they get access to information, credit and markets.

In one locality of Northern Nigeria, it appears that smaller farmers

got preferential access to new peanut seeds, although there is the

possibility that village elites who made these allocations benefited

directly (by switching the seeds and giving poorer farmers bad

seeds) or indirectly (by increased political patronage) from them

also.

 What has extension done for these smaller farmers who are

hurt by the expanding power of larger farmers? One subtle analysis

of extension in the U.S. maintains that its main contribution has

been not to increase their productivity but rather to facilitate


 5 (from previous page)
 Prakeash M. Singh and Bella Mody, The Communication Effects
Gap: A Field Experiment on Television and Agricultural Ignorance
in India," in Everett Rogers, ed., Communication and Development:
Critical Perspectives (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1976), p. 83.


1Peter Matlon, p. 383.